Iron Maiden Song Launches A Metal Literature Class

I think this is really cool man. Now, you know if you listen to the show regularly that I love the metal, I’m The Hawks resident metal-head. So when I read this story, it made my head bangin’ heart swell. There is hope for the world of academia!

A guy by the name of Martin Jacobsen from West Texas A&M University has introduced a course in heavy metal literature after an experiment with the Iron Maiden track “Out Of The Silent Planet” from their 2000 album, “Brave New World” and it was a huge success. He’s a linguistics expert at the university and told Amarillo.com “The students were mad for it – they thought it was crazy and they loved it. I threw it out as an offhand comment one day: ‘What we ought to do is have a class in heavy metal.’ There was universal agreement from the students in the class: ‘Yes, we should actually do that.’”

 

He mentions that many metal lyrics have been inspired by the works of some of history’s greatest writers. “You constantly see these nods to the intellectual tradition that the lyricists come from,” he said. “Therefore it’s reasonable to conclude that it’s a form of literature as well as a form of music – in much the same way you might say country music is a species of folklore. The thematic content of heavy metal lends itself to the same kind of thought processes that reading literature would bring up. It talks about things in ways that you have to unlock your mind to understand, just like reading classical literature or any other kind of literature.”

Now, I never attended college but I can assure you that if I could have majored in HEAVY METAL, my butt would be in that seat every day. Attendance 100%. Gold star for Mr. Murphy.

On that same note, some other classes (if they were offered) would perhaps be

• “Throwing inanimate objects out of hotel windows 101″.
• “Rock N Roll All Night, Party Everyday”
• ‘Learn How To In Fact, Rock You Like A Hurricane”
• “Scream For Vengeance 101″
• & My favorite, the music class: “Symphony of Destruction”